Battery-free Game Boy runs forever
Button pressing and solar energy power the retro gaming device
Date:
September 3, 2020
Source:
Northwestern University
Summary:
Researchers develop first-ever battery-free, energy-harvesting,
interactive device. And it looks and feels like a retro 8-bit
Nintendo Game Boy.
FULL STORY ==========================================================================
A hand-held video game console allowing indefinite gameplay might be a
parent's worst nightmare.
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But this Game Boy is not just a toy. It's a powerful proof-of-concept, developed by researchers at Northwestern University and the Delft
University of Technology (TU Delft) in the Netherlands, that pushes the boundaries of battery-free intermittent computing into the realm of fun
and interaction.
Instead of batteries, which are costly, environmentally hazardous and ultimately end up in landfills, this device harvests energy from the sun
-- and the user. These advances enable gaming to last forever without
having to stop and recharge the battery.
"It's the first battery-free interactive device that harvests energy
from user actions," said Northwestern's Josiah Hester, who co-led the
research. "When you press a button, the device converts that energy into something that powers your gaming." "Sustainable gaming will become a
reality, and we made a major step in that direction -- by getting rid of
the battery completely," said TU Delft's Przemyslaw Pawelczak, who co-led
the research with Hester. "With our platform, we want to make a statement
that it is possible to make a sustainable gaming system that brings fun
and joy to the user." The teams will present the research virtually at
UbiComp 2020, a major conference within the field of interactive systems,
on Sept. 15.
Hester is an assistant professor of electrical and computer
engineering and computer science in Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering. Pawelczak is an assistant professor in the Embedded Software
Lab at TU Delft. Their team includes Jasper de Winkel and Vito Kortbeek,
both Ph.D. candidates at TU Delft.
The researchers' energy aware gaming platform (ENGAGE) has the size
and form factor of the original Game Boy, while being equipped with a
set of solar panels around the screen. Button presses by the user are a
second source of energy. Most importantly, it impersonates the Game Boy processor. Although this solution requires a lot of computational power,
and therefore energy, it allows any popular retro game to be played
straight from its original cartridge.
As the device switches between power sources, it does experience
short losses in power. To ensure an acceptable duration of gameplay
between power failures, the researchers designed the system hardware
and software from the ground up to be energy aware as well as very
energy efficient. They also developed a new technique for storing the
system state in non-volatile memory, minimizing overhead and allowing
quick restoration when power returns. This eliminates the need to press
"save" as seen in traditional platforms, as the player can now continue gameplay from the exact point of the device fully losing power -- even
if Mario is in mid-jump.
On a not-too-cloudy day, and for games that require at least moderate
amounts of clicking, gameplay interruptions typically last less than
one second for every 10 seconds of gameplay. The researchers find this
to be a playable scenario for some games -- including Chess, Solitaire
and Tetris -- but certainly not yet for all (action) games.
Although there is still a long way to go before state-of-the-art 21st
century hand-held game consoles become fully battery-free, the researchers
hope their devices raise awareness of the environmental impact of the
small devices that make up the Internet of Things. Batteries are costly, environmentally hazardous and they must eventually be replaced to avoid
that the entire device ends up at the landfill.
"Our work is the antithesis of the Internet of Things, which has many
devices with batteries in them," Hester said. "Those batteries eventually
end up in the garbage. If they aren't fully discharged, they can become hazardous. They are hard to recycle. We want to build devices that are
more sustainable and can last for decades."
========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Northwestern_University. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.
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Link to news story:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200903171445.htm
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